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CURSO DE DERECHO MARÍTIMO. By Ignacio Arroyo. Barcelona: J.M. Bosch Editor 2001. Pp. Xxxvii/952. USD 137.16. ISBN: 8492045477
Professor Ignacio Arroyo, who holds a chair of commercial law at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has spent many years in research for the monumental Curso de Derecho Marítimo (Course on Maritime Law). The book is monumental because it presents twenty-three comprehensive chapters and spans nearly 1000 pages. The author's objective has been to create a study different from traditional legal classification because - as he explains in the introduction-maritime law is a collection of rules belonging to different areas of law (international, administrative, commercial, etc.) and what they have in common is that they all originate or evolve in relation to the sea.
There is unfortunately not enough space in a short review to describe the contents of all the chapters in detail, so I will limit myself to more general remarks.
The first two chapters are introductory. Chapter One, The Concept of Maritime Law, is an excellent introduction to the studied subject: it analyses the characteristics and objectives of the norms of maritime law, as well as different systems of continental European law, and then conducts a comparison of the maritime law of Europe with that of the UK and the US. In the second chapter, the author presents extensively the historic sources of maritime law (legal acts, customs and general principles) from the most ancient Roman and medieval ones through those of the nineteenth century, with a special emphasis on sources from the southern part of Europe. Afterwards he moves to contemporary sources in both Spanish and international law, describing various international conventions, the activity of international intergovernmental and private organisations, and other "sources of knowledge," viz., books and journals on the subject of maritime law in foreign countries.
The next three chapters are devoted to the law of the sea, classified by some as public maritime law. Chapter Three, The Legal Status of the Sea and Maritime Seabed, begins with the historical evolution of the law of the sea and relevant international conventions and then analyses the legal status of...